Legislature enacts performance audits

Congratulations to Rep. Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way) for finally, finally getting a performance audits bill through the Legislature, after years of trying. HB 1064 passed the House today by a 75 to 22 margin, after having passed the Senate 30 to 19 earlier in the month. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the bill into law.

(A curious note… the always luscious Sen. Pam Roach voted against the bill, while her son Dan voted for it. Hmmmm.)

Of course, professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman is still pushing his bullshit performance audits initiative, I-900, but then… he wouldn’t be Tim if he didn’t. I imagine it’s kind of hard to feign outrage about the need for performance audits, when we already have them, but I suppose Tim will find a way.

Anyway… it’s a kind of boring topic I’ve written about on way too many occasions, so if you’re interested in my take on performance audits, you can find my previous blogs here.

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Government working well is kind of boring (and audits of bureaucratic agencies sound even more boring), but I don’t mind if government hums away quietly in the background while we get on with our lives.

I admit passing legislation is fun though. HB 1561 also passed the Legislature this week—it will stop life insurance companies from continuing their practice of denying life insurance coverage to people who have traveled to Israel (or other countries on the State Department’s Travel Warning list) in the last few years. I’m especially happy about this bill because I had a hand in writing it, testifying, and negotiating compromise language with the insurance industry’s lobbyists. Mmm, politics.

prr @ 2 You know you are right… I would feel SO much better if we had the good folks at Arthur Andersen handling this. Private industry is just inherently more trustworthy then someone on a government salary.

Ok, I guess I am feeling a little snarky this morning… Anyway, have you ever worked in the government at all prr? If you did, I don’t think you would be quite so worried.

In fact, I might be more worried about some private auditing outfit in charge. I could see a situation where if they caused too many waves they would be worried about losing the contract and be out of a job. On the other hand, since there is the presumption that there must be huge amounts of waste, a political body would be under pressure to find it and could be held accountable if it did not. There are ads and disads both ways in my opinion, but I am think this is a good idea in general and I am willing to see how it works before flying off the handle with criticism.

Shilling for the EFF again? I mean… gees… this bill does almost absolutely everything the EFF asked for, with one small exception, and they want to toss it on the dung heap. Just another example of the extreme right wanting absolute control over absolutely every detail, with no compromise allowed.

1064 does provide independent audits. The audits are managed by the state auditor, contracting out to independent firms. the Citizen Advisory Board’s role is to prioritize the audits, but all the staffing to the board is provided by the auditor’s office.

State Auditor Brian Sonntag… the “independent” auditor both the EFF and Eyman want to run the audits… is very pleased with this bill, and has spoken out against Eyman’s expensive and overreaching initiative. If you can trust the man enough to conduct these audits, I think you can trust him enough when he says this is a good bill.

We need a performance audit of Goldy’s mysterious Lawyer X… Actually we need to find him. He seems to have disappeared since this Election Contest went south on the SEATTLE LEFTISTS. Too late to bring in mitigating information. Dean Logan blabs.

Goldy will bring up everything under the sun to avoid talking about this!!

I could go along with including citizens and private sector representatives in the audit process if we could be assured that their place on the board would not be used to obstruct the work of state agencies or push a political agenda or ideology.

Please submit your list to the legislature, as they are looking for ways to save. Do you think legislators enjoy raising their constituents’ taxes? Don’t you think there’s already a powerful incentive, in the form of re-election, not to mismanage or overtax? I’m not saying there’s no opportunities for savings; I think a case can be made for saving personnel costs by make significant reductions in middle management at larger agencies, especially DSHS, and although I’m less familiar with the public education sector than state government, from what other people have said I have an impression that the K-12 system also is management-heavy. Since K-12 spending is such a big part of the state budget (over 40%), this is an area where you might find significant cost savings by reducing bureaucracy. Much of this bureaucracy seems directed at controlling what teachers do in the classroom, so to reduce it, you’ll have to give teachers more freedom in what and how they teach, but that might be a good thing in itself.

OK, I haven’t taken a close look at this bill, but from Goldy’s remarks @ 7, it sounds like outside citizens ARE on the board — so what’s the beef? As Goldy asserts, I suspect it comes down to right wingers wanting their way and wanting to micromanage.

I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you trust state government. For what it’s worth, I don’t trust you or your ilk, and I’m glad our state government is in the hands it’s in, instead of your kind. How does that grab you?

To date, I’ve personally asked three of the Democrats’ four principal counsel on the case what they thought the GOP’s chances are in the lawsuit, and all three said “none.” Sure, they’re partisan, and of course they’re not going to tell a stranger about any doubts they might harbor. But their confidence in the outcome seemed genuine, and these legal experts are in a far better position than you or I to gauge what the Republicans have to prove in court to succeed in their effort, and because they’re involved in the discovery and trial preparation, they know what the Republican lawyers have — and don’t have. So, for now, I’ll go with their opinion, and regard your opinion as nothing more than partisan bravado. If the Democrats lose, I’ll be among those eating crow; if the GOP and Rossi loses, I’ll be happy to pass you the salt and any other seasonings you desire.

Don@14– Fair enough- By the way, I’ve never eaten crow before. Since you obviously have eaten more than your fair share Don, what does it taste like?? Just curious? By the way…did you specifically ask these 3 attorneys about Logan’s performance the past few days??? Just curious as to WHEN you talked with them.

Don@11- You are actually worried about people with private sector experience “obstructing the work of state agencies’??? What work Don? Planning for more stuff we don’t have the money to actually do?

I’m expecting your pal Timmy to come out with a constitutional amendment requiring at least a 2/3 vote of legislators to raise taxes — thus relieving him of having to keep harping on the silly performance audit initiative.

Pardon the non-sequitur, but since it is related to Legislature action – or rather non-action – I’ve not seen anyone take up the failure of the School Levy bill (HJR 4205 which you wrote about back on April 3) to come to a vote in the Senate.

A good percentage of the “waste” in government agencies is not due to errors or omissions of government employees, it’s due to policy or political requirements. Agencies do not study things forever because they want to, it’s because pressure form citizens to look and re-look at things and because elected officials do not have the courage to make decisions. And those elected officials are elected by the citizens. We do not really want efficient government, we want to comment, second guess and criticize.

what about that performance audit of the king county elections department? Anyone know when that will start? I am just hoping my ballot for Valley Hospital does not get co-mingled in with last Nov election. I want my NO vote to count dammit.

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